Lynx unleashes world’s first invisible ad
Unilever deodorant brand Lynx has launched what it claims to be the world’s first invisible ad to promote its unisex variant Anarchy.
Passers-by were handed polaroid sunglasses and invited to look up at the windows of a terraced house in Darlinghurst, Sydney, which had been fitted with special LCD screens.
The glasses – blue for men and pink for women – gave the viewer ‘the Lynx effect’ with images of couples making out and a dog swimming in a room full of water.
The launch of Anarchy has been digitally led, with the introduction of Spark, a phone app, and activity on the brand’s Facebook page and a YouTube channel.
The agencies behind the campaign were Soap Creative and Finch.
Soap ECD Brad Eldridge said: “Anarchy is the first time LYNX has ever released a female fragrance. We wanted to create something as disruptive and innovative as the product itself. Working with Finch we used a clever hack combining LCD screens and polaroid glasses to create something that extends the campaign in an innovative and unique way.”
Lynx senior brand manager Duncan Robertson, added: “We’re always looking for ways to innovate but not just for the sake of it. It needs to fit in with the message we’re trying to get across and this execution ticks all the boxes. We’re very pleased with the results.”
Very nice indeed.
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That house looks so freaky without the sunglasses.
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I would love to see ‘happenings’ like this pop up all over town.
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Cool idea and nice variety of images. The crowd did seem a little hand-picked though. But still I like it!
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Great to see something so innovative come out of Australia. Well done team Lynx!
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V cool, nice to see brands breaking the mould and doing something different to a stunt in Martin Place 😉
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Well done Brad and Co, might well have outdone the Lynx Angel Ambush with this one!
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I’m sure the 50 people there really enjoyed it.
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waste of time and money
this is just the sort of award seeking work that plagues our industry
how does this drive sales
how will this drive brand affinity
as Ron says – life changing to all 50 people that attended and us wankers writing about it
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Ron Jeremy understands how events live beyond the people that actually experienced it.
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Nice publicity stunt, as long as someone is there to hand out the glasses 😉 How much did it cost? How many pairs of glasses, did you say?
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Well you’re all talking about it you negative Nellys! I think it’s a great campaign and to answer @bouya’s question on how it will drive sales? Similar to the Linx Angel campaign this clip no doubt has legs. It’ll go viral and people like you who talk about it will no doubt consider it next time you’re staring blankly at the deoderant rack at the supermarket.
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(that was the world’s first invisible post.)
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And like the Lynx Angel Ambush, when this campaign is inevitably copied, people will refer back to the original as comparison.
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Really cool and nice to see for Australia but they don’t get to claim ‘World’s first invisible ad.’ Check out Mercedes..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIGzpi9lCck
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I atually happened to wander past and it was quite cool……..I mean I still don’t want to smell like a 14 year old chav or Alan Partridge (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YllyBr_4Kxk) but I liked it
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@Oscar creativity it inevitably linking together ideas. I could say that lynx copied the rejected brief we gave to canon. But there’s no way of knowing that.
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6,500 views so far. Will it reach 9,000,000 like the Mercedes ad? When has it been worth it? 50% of the Australian population? Jeez some of you guys are negative.
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I meant *The brief we answered for the International Advertising Association for Canon.
But never the less, i’m sure this will be refined a cooler concepts are on the way.
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If it doesn’t go viral, it failed (from a sales perspective). Relying on word of mouth of 50 people, and the ad industry, won’t drive sales alone. I bet a TVC is around the corner…mass market medium for a mass market product.
Cool idea though.
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that mercedes work is awesome, the creative idea, execution and strategy all work together to form a whole peice bigger than the parts, i like the lynx work but seems to me that its a nifty peice of technology with a nice execution but no real creative idea or strategy….
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Ignore the hate – a very cool idea.
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Nice idea and execution, but I question moving the brand so close to just (live) porn. Surely the Lynx brand is all about helping teenage boys in the mating game and making them believe they can get the unobtainable hot girl if they just have the right tools. That seems to be the brand’s value.
This just positions the brand as helping turn you into a perv. Teenage boys don’t need help finding videos of people having sex – they have the internet.
Nice innovation though and well done client for having the balls to do it (see what I did there).
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Of course it is all set up and only a few people saw it. Who cares. Good idea. Will go Viral and pay for itself many times over…
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Very cool idea, love it. Very creative and memorable. And yeah, sure, next time I’m in the supermarket I’ll probably think of it when I’m looking at the Lynx product range.
But what really drives sales in that product category?
I’m pretty sure no one is going to buy a product because it had a cool ad campaign if it smells terrible / is twice the price of the competition.
This campaign will no doubt experience great viral success, and it’s certainly got the rest of us talking in here. But to me, it ‘smells’ a little like the Old Spice campaign….
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@Keaton, we worked on the Lynx Angel Ambush with Grand Visual and the creative started in late 2010. I can guarantee you the inspiration did not come from a rejected brief.
How could Lynx have copied your pitch if it was rejected by a completely separate corporation? Your argument is as confusing as your grammar.
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Haha – really nice that.
Nice to see some Aussie agencies not being so conservative – if not a bit predictable it might be Lynx as the catalyst.
Love the girls comment 2/3 though “yeah that’s what I want to be doing”
Give me buzz 😉 ha…
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Lynx now making products for females? Will their next ad feature a pillow fight on a jet between members of Manpower Australia?
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Well done team.
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I agree with Tom. None of their target audience is there…
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Bouya and Underwhelmed are on the money.
I doubt very much this “case study” video has enough wow factor for the average punter to pass it on.
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Soap Creative and Finch….. that’s some cool shit!
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“It’ll go viral and people like you who talk about it will no doubt consider it next time you’re staring blankly at the deoderant rack at the supermarket.”
Okay. Then let’s reserve judgement until it ‘goes viral’. And I’m talking about more than a few advertising people putting it on their Facebook pages and saying ‘hey, look what we did’.
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Regardless of how well the product does (and I do not think it will do that great), I think this is a really good technical idea. Yes the crowd was not that big and they seem cherry picked amongst the hipsters, but the idea and execution is still cool. Well done.
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Awesome. Agree with Adrianne, can’t believe that came out of Australia.
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cool
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‘A’ wrote “Regardless of how well the product does (and I do not think it will do that great), I think this is a really good technical idea. Yes the crowd was not that big and they seem cherry picked amongst the hipsters, but the idea and execution is still cool. Well done.”
Which business are you in? Is it the business of doing clever for the sake of clever? I though advertising used creativity as a way to achieve a commercial result. If you want to create random art, please do it with your own money rather than your client’s.
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I so agree with the senitment from Jose about the need for advertising to elicit a response of some sort, either in change in preference/ perception, willingness to trial or an intent to purchase.
For a launch campaign, especially since this is a NPD, it’s quite strange to have a physical event like this as the lead part of the campaign launch, unless the intention was for this to be a “newsworthy” piece of first, i.e. picked up by major networks, I am unsure if this event justifies the cost that the client would have likely put into an event such as this. I have no problem with the remainder of this campaign since it appears to be quite 360 orientated with pre-rolls, youtube, mobile etc, however this event, if it isn’t going to viral is probably very low in the scheme of ROIs for the cilent’s money.
That being said, on the level of creativity, it is a cool idea.
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Excellent idea. This will surely be shared like mad and when young or fashionable men are in a store, which sells this product they will buy it – brilliant! (POS could be elaborate to hit the message home…)
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A really innovative idea….great to see great ideas being shared by client who actually get’ it.
Loved it….45,000 views already…
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Very cool idea and I hope it and any augmented ideas make it work.
All too often the technology and “wow” supersedes any recognition of the brand.
How many times have you heard; “saw this great ad…can’t remember what it was for but…”
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The idea to integrate this with instore POS would be cool. Good Luck to the product’s success.
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Reasonable idea. ROI questionable.
Aside from that I can’t see Lynx being successful with girls (or men) without a name change. Men don’t like reading the label to see if they’ve picked up a female fragrance product by mistake.
I would say that women probably don’t want to buy a product from a company that employs the crude advertising strategies that work with young males.
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